The Vikings had bungled the recovery of an onside kick, the Bears had scored 11 points in the final two minutes and the fans who had remained at Soldier Field tried making enough noise for the ones who tried in vain to re-enter the stadium after leaving early.
Sam Darnold had backed into Montez Sweat for a sack on the Vikings’ first play of overtime, and the Vikings faced a second-and-17 from their own 14. The decibel levels at Soldier Field rose as the Vikings’ win probability dropped from 57% to 43%; without a pair of completions on the next two plays, the Vikings would risk giving the ball back to the Bears with good field position in a sudden-death situation.
“You’re kind of in the hornet’s nest at that point, dealing with being on the road in the NFC North, and you’ve just lost momentum completely,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said Monday.
T.J. Hockenson wrested a second-down completion away from linebacker T.J. Edwards, and after a Bears timeout, Darnold found Jordan Addison off a short motion for a 13-yard completion on third-and-10. A false-start penalty on Johnny Mundt made it first-and-15, but Darnold hit Justin Jefferson for 20 yards to the Vikings 49-yard line.
After that conversion, yet another penalty: holding called on Blake Brandel made it first-and-20. Darnold hit Aaron Jones for 9 yards and Hockenson for 12. Two plays after a 29-yard strike to Hockenson, the Vikings lined up for Parker Romo’s game-winning 29-yarder.
“Our guys just kept playing. The execution was there,” O’Connell said. “We were playing really without our starting left tackle for the game, for the better part of it, against a good defense. I just thought guys stepped up across the board.”
O’Connell has been able to recount road games in sunny terms more frequently than any coach in recent Vikings history. After acing a three-game road trip with wins at Jacksonville, Tennessee and Chicago, the Vikings have a 5-1 road record this season, tied for second best in the league with the Chiefs and Eagles. Throw in the Vikings’ London victory against the Jets, and they’ve won six times in seven games away from U.S. Bank Stadium this year.
Only the Lions, who are 6-0 on the road and handed the Vikings their only defeat of the year at U.S. Bank Stadium, have been better on the road than the Vikings.